Massimo Rao's artistic career has always had a preeminent oneiric component that united him with other highly talented painters. Among these: Tommasi Ferroni, Clerici, Annigoni, Donizzetti and De Stefano. Its characteristics are the never predictable and always safe invention, the superlative technique cultivated on ancient masters. But also the intelligent ability to give meaning to his paintings. These are peculiarities that Rao has never lost.
Massimo Rao was an extraordinary draftsman, painter and engraver, full of imagination and never a quotationist. His work was rooted in cultural stratifications of great tradition: the Naples of Bernardo Cavallino and Ribera, the Tuscan mannerism of Pontormo and the Nordic taste of Dürer, Van Eyck and Grünewald. At first glance it would seem that above all things he prefers drapery: his characters are always immersed in large and swollen drapery wrapped several times around the body and head. In his paintings there appear masks hanging from a thread full of mysterious moons immersed in solitary and rough landscapes of our or another planet ... and then melancholy, another of his recurring features.
